#florida derby

[tripleb404]

I’m on the crafts committee for roller derby, so I’ve been one of the people making our MVP awards. I’m super happy with how these booties came out! Our bout theme was “Battle for Alligator Alley” so I made the “fabric” look like it was gator skin. 🐊

[officerjennie]

👀👀👀

[jessicatredes]

hey if I wanted to like start following hockey and/or F1 how…… would I go about doing that…….. are games/races only on TV or can I keep up over the internet or what?

hey! im not super sure about hockey tbh, i only follow that when the caps are doing well for the stanley cup lol and i just keep up thru twitter

but I watch f1 thru f1tv which is an app! ik there are some links that float around in the f1 tag on here for streaming sites but i just pay the $8 a month bc ill*g*l sites scare me 😭 there's also a streaming service called skytv or smth similar but i think it's only for european/uk ips?

f1 also posts highlights on their youtube channel and i started w that before getting f1tv to see if i was actually interested in motorsport. there's also some good videos on yt that explain f1 rules like how points/pole/flags/etc work

another way to follow along is a lot of f1 teams will post their reports after each practice/quali/gp so you can see how the car was performing & if they want to make changes or switch up their strat

[mxstellatayte]

next door kind of love.

warnings: none, just some childhood best friends to lovers and tooth-rotting fluff. make your dentist's appointments now yall.

growing up living next door to the sargeants was an interesting experience. your parents were friends, having bonded when logan's parents moved in a few months after your own parents had. then, a few years later, they had dalton. just over a month after dalton's first birthday, you came along, and then eight months after you, on new year's eve, logan was born.

the three of you were inseparable as you grew up. you'd accompany them to their races and they'd support you at your roller derby tournaments. they would find a new way to climb the tree in your back yard and you would set a time record for climbing that route. the three of you had more inside jokes than you could count, made up more backyard games than anyone could ever begin to comprehend, and trusted each other beyond the ends of the earth.

when the sargeants moved to switzerland, though, you were crushed. sure, their plan was to only stay for two years, but those two years started to feel like an unbearable eternity after just the first month.

"mama," you said, a bite of peanut butter and jelly sandwich in your mouth, "i miss logie and dalt. when are they coming back?"

"not for a long time, honey. i'm sure they'll come visit, though. how about we call them and see how they're doing?"

your face lit up. "yeah! can we call them now? can we can we can we?"

your mother smiled and shook her head, the papers surrounding her full of confusing numbers and big words like "homeowner's insurance" and "disability pension application."

"maybe, honey. we'll have to see what time works for them. first, though, i need you to finish your lunch, strawberries and all. can you do that for me?"

"sure, mama."

lo and behold, two years had passed, and the sargeants were almost back to florida. your father had the idea of surprising them at the airport, so you'd made a giant sign that said "WELCOME BACK SARGEANTS!" in bright blue magic marker. after selecting a spot you deemed visible enough, you craned your neck every time a new flow of passengers exited, hoping to see your best friends. every time you caught a flash of what might've been one of them, your heart skipped a beat, but when you finally saw dalton, logan, and their parents, it felt like you were on the moon.

you mustered up as much air into your thirteen-year-old lungs as you could and screamed.

"DALTON! LOGAN!"

every head in the airport whipped around to you, but you couldn't care less. your two best friends were running full speed at you, suitcases abandoned with their parents, and you couldn't stop smiling. you're slammed by the tightest hug you've ever experienced and you might be seeing stars from your ribs being crushed but that doesn't matter when you finally have dalton and logan back with you in florida.

you're muttering so many "i missed you"s and "i couldn't wait to see you guys"s and "i have so much to tell you"s into them, and it feels like forever before you guys let go of each other.

"you guys ready to get out of here?"

when logan won the karting championship in 2015, you'd never screamed louder. you were the first person he looked for after the race and the person he hugged the tightest.

when you made it to the top roller derby league in your area, he was the first person to congratulate you, and he brought you a small bouquet of your favorite flowers- baby breath, white tulips, and jasmine.

as logan worked his way up through the different levels of formula racing, you'd always manage to stay up to all hours of the night to watch him race or even send him a simple "good luck" text.

when he told you he'd been admitted to the williams driver academy, you almost tackled him to the ground with how much force you hugged him with. "i'm so happy for you," you said, repeated like a mantra.

"and guess what?"

"there's more?" you pulled back from the hug, looking up at him.

"i get to do a post-season test drive in abu dhabi."

"what?!" the smile on your face is not only from pride, but now also shock. "lo, are you serious? that's amazing! when did you find out?"

"maybe..." he checks his watch, eyes looking up. "five minutes ago?"

"wait. did you tell your parents? and dalt?" he hesitates, a blush of embarrassment creeping up his cheeks. you can't help but think, even for an instant, that it's... kind of cute?

"logan hunter sargeant, did you tell me before you told your parents?"

"i might have..." the scowl on your face deepens, and you pull away from him, remove the house slipper you're wearing, and whack him across the head with it.

"out of my house! go over to your own and tell your parents, your literal givers of life, that you're driving a fucking formula one car! out! out with you!" you wave him out of your front door and watch with a smile on your face as he runs back to his own home, laughing when he trips over himself and falls into the grass. a few minutes later, you hear dan and madelyn scream with joy.

"my best friend is going to drive a formula one car," you say to the wind. "holy shit."

a bit over a year later, when logan signs with williams to drive with them in 2023, he still tells you before his parents.

the tuesday after the austin grand prix, a new post on your private instagram account appears. its location is tagged as the circuit of the americas and the caption reads "one of the perks of your best friend being a formula 1 driver is getting to go to austin and get paddock passes for free. the other is getting to spend the weekend with your best friend."

in may of 2024, logan brings you to the miami grand prix. at the end of the race, you are the first person he looks for. you are the person he hugs the tightest. you are the person to tell him that it wasn't his fault that he crashed and he did everything he could. you are the person whose shoulder he cries into and the person who gently holds his face and wipes his tears away with your thumbs.

you are the person to stand on your tip toes to place a kiss to his lips, the salty taste of his tears reaching your own lips. you are the person he sees when he opens his eyes and, when you backpedal in the slightest bit, you are the person he pulls closer and kisses like he means it.

you are the only person that hears when he says that he's loved you since you surprised him at the airport when they came back from switzerland. you are the only person that hears him say that it's always been you that he's loved, that he's never seen anyone else besides you.

and he is the only one that hears you say that you love him, too.

[yippeeometer]

states and how they get canceled.

BREAKING: weird old guy in your town who shouts at clouds has discovered the internet. terrible things happen.

NJ- glamorizing the mafia.

oregon's plan to give an NE state a heart attack fails when he introduces NJ to roleplay twitter accounts, unexpectedly creating joy in an old man who realizes he can finally spill all his 1920s gangster stories w/o people calling him lame and boring. goes on the most clearly elaborated rants about his and yorks mafia days in his 'roleplay' account. gets canceled for glamorizing the mafia and wont shut up ab how everyone is so jealous they hate him. gets wine drunk and cries about it.

arkansas- accidental homophobia

has an entire twitter page he runs like an old bitter man posting only about how much he hates texas and how he thinks all the DIY he posts is dumb. gets instantly canceled because they assume hes doing it because tx is gay, but never has to apologize because tx crashes out on live that having multiple tweets about his enemy's stupid nice eyes doesnt make him gay and everyone forgets.

florida- being a Threat.

gets wildly twitter famous for his party girl tweets around the brat era. everyone thinks hes being cheeky and ironic talking about setting dumpsters on fire for brat summer. turns out this guy has an extensive history.

kansas- fraud

signs up to twitter on one of his fake names, gets very confused and announces himself as a former winner of the derby... that he won with a different name. makes a 10 part video full tears shaking begging people not to discredit his skills that the south will not ever let him forget. daily sent artwork of him w tears and snot sobbing.

colorado- spreading disimformation.

has his shitpost account he spends hours posting on when his only three friends are too busy to hang out with him. gets massively canceled for his medical posts and conspiracy theory. california needs to get on live to say no, hes not trying to influence you guys, hes genuinely that stupid.

[formulaforza]

miss americana & the heartbreak prince

—01. all american girl —word count: 6.4k —warnings: none :) —a/n: this is queued so I'm sound asleep right now but trust when I wake... I will be throwing up about having posted this

It’s nine in the morning on Friday, and the kindergarteners at Robinson Elementary are getting picked up from the gymnasium and taken to their classroom to start their day. It’s nine in the morning on Friday, and their teacher, Chris Elliott, is running four minutes late to the first day of the U.S Grand Prix. Her fingers flatten down stray flyaways, working in tandem with the extra strength hairspray she found in the back of the Walgreens beauty aisle last night. Her makeup is strewn about in chaos atop the stark white marble countertops, a single folded piece of toilet paper in the trash can, remnants of her lipstick kissed onto the fibers. 

She played it safe on the outfit today, still hasn’t been able to pinpoint exactly what the dress code for this race is supposed to be. Her Dad has been no help–he can get away with wearing jeans and a short-sleeve button-up just about anywhere he goes. More is expected from her, though. Three days, three outfits, always walking the line between casual streetwear and Kentucky Derby without a fascinator. She settled for something painfully classic and American, figured a European sport would be eating up the concept of everything being bigger in Texas. Levi’s, a white tank top, and a beat up pair of cowboy boots should do a good enough job at letting anyone curious know she’s authentically American, without screaming out for attention. That’s the goal for the weekend; blend in and keep Dad company. 

Dad, who is not-so patiently tapping his foot against the floor, watching pre-race coverage of the Dixie Vodka 400 on his iPhone 7,  is a guest of honor for Ferrari this weekend. It was a classic Bill Elliott commitment, one he makes and then forgets about until he’s getting sent an email a month ago to remind him. One he makes when he forgets his son is racing the same weekend. That’s how Chris ended up here with him, instead of her Mom or instead of Chase or Chandler. They’re all in Florida for the Cup Series. Well–Chandler isn’t. Chandler’s at her hot-shot job in the big city living her life blissfully away from racing. 

She can count on a single hand the amount of times her dad has missed a Cup Series race in the years since his retirement. Even if he’s moved on from driving the track, racing is in Elliott blood. It comes easier to them than breathing does. Chris won’t be the first to admit it, but she's the NASCAR nepotism equivalent of a Baldwin baby. She’s no Kennedy, the first-families of NASCAR are closer to the Petty’s and the Earnhardt’s, but, you ask a NASCAR fan about the Elliott Clan and you’re sure to get an earful. Champion, Hall-of-Fame inductee father, supergenius transmission and engine mechanic uncles, and a superstar fan-favorite older brother, the Elliott family racing history spans generations of fans.

Never the Danica Patrick-type, Chris has always preferred to watch the races rather than compete in them, but she still grew up at the track and was always up for a trip to visit her dad at the auto-shop. 

“Mums,” her dad says, peeking his head around the corner into the hotel bathroom. It’s a stupid nickname, Mums, Chrysanthemum. She’d roll her eyes if it was anyone but Bill still calling her by it. “We gotta go, darlin’.” Chris nods at him in the mirror, flattens her hands along her thigh and tucks one final strand of her bang behind her ear, and then they’re finally leaving the hotel for the track. 

It’s a strange kind of first for Chris, in that it’s not really a first at all. She’s been to COTA before, multiple times. Hell, she watched in the garage when Chase won the inaugural Cup Series race here in May last season. She’s even been to the U.S Grand Prix before, back when it was still in Indianapolis, when Chris was too young to remember if it was big or if she was just little. She’s used to the crowds, spends almost every weekend with upwards of fifty-thousand people, but this? This is the kind of crowd she can’t fathom being among, and it’s only Friday. If it takes them an hour and a half to get through traffic on a practice day, she can only imagine what the next two mornings have in store for her. 

“No antics today,” Bill tells her in the car. “They’re not like us. Trust me, I know.”

Last time you went to one of these races, you were still a driver, she wants to tell him, but doesn’t. He doesn’t take well to the implication he’s an old man. Walking into the paddock with a yellow pass hung around her neck, FERRARI-GUEST-17 and a picture of the team logo popping up on the screens at the turnstiles, she’s beyond taken back by the pomp and circumstance of it all. She’s barely through the entrance and she’s already spotted half a dozen people who could buy her without it making a dent in their pockets. It’s nothing like walking around a NASCAR track. There isn’t a single Bud Light knight or backs sunburnt into American flags or t-shirts turned muscle tanks. It’s just… rich people. Lots and lots of rich people. 

In the Paddock Club tent, Bill manages to find a couple of his old buddies. Guys he raced with back in the day who’ve turned up for whatever with whoever this weekend. It’s unsurprising, stock car racing is nowhere near as exclusive a club as Formula One. They aren’t any of the guys Chris remembers being a part of her childhood, none of them pseudo-uncles in the way some other drivers were. You’re all grown up, they tell her, note her height and her features and one of them even asks if she’s in college yet. She plays along, pretends she remembers them fondly and that they haven’t been on the recipient list for the annual Elliott family Christmas newsletter for the past thirty or so years. His buddies are much more comfortable talking about Chase, anyways, about his racing and his fiancee and his little boy than they’ve ever been talking about Chris or Chandler. The concept of a quote-en-quote girl dad wasn’t such a thing in the nineties.

Chris makes small talk with one of the wives. They can’t be that far apart in age, she’s definitely of a different generation than her husband. Gross. Chris lets the woman lead the conversation; she talks about the polka dots on her skirt and Chris’ cowboy boots that are, apparently, perfectly authentic. 

They separate from the group of former NASCAR drivers and their child brides within the hour. Bill has to be in Ferrari hospitality by one o’clock for a special meeting. He’s still not sure what he did to get selected for this specific group of people who get to do a hot lap with one of the Ferrari drivers, but he isn’t about to ask any questions that might get him out of it. He sets off to hospitality and Chris sneaks out of the paddock and into the rest of the track. 

There’s only so much to see inside the paddock. Hospitality after hospitality after hospitality, just in different colors with different modern structures with pictures of different cars. She wants to experience the event, not just the rich people who can pay their way into the upper echelon of the pinnacle of motorsport. If she’s going to be on her own for an hour and a half, she might as well be fully and truly on her own. 

She ends up in the beer garden. More specifically, the bar tent. You can’t separate a NASCAR fan from the Natty Light. The pass around her neck gets her into the VIP area of the tent, which… feels like an antithesis of itself.  Her phone buzzes in her back pocket when she’s waiting on her bottle from the bartender. It’s her dad. 

Brad Pitt is here. Crazy. 

She makes quick acquaintances with a couple who looks about her age. She compliments the girl’s denim jacket and then she’s in. The DJ is playing country music with a techno backtrack at the other side of the tent and they all three spend a good fifteen minutes trying to decide if they love or hate the set. “It’s not the worst thing I’ve ever heard,” the guy says. 

“It’s definitely not the best, though,” Chris winces, spots a Ferrari pass hanging with the VIP one around the girlfriend’s neck. “Are you guys here with Ferrari?” She asks. 

“Oh, “ she says, looks down at the pass and fiddles with it for a moment. “Yeah, Will’s a golfer and they invited him for a tour and to do this golf event with ESPN.”

“Oh, that’s sick!” Chris nods. “Have you guys ever been here, or is this your first time?”

“We’ve come every year for…” Will starts, looks to his girlfriend for the rest of his sentence. 

“Four years,” she nods. “What about you?”

“This is my first time,” Chris explains, leaves out the technicalities because she barely cares about them, doesn’t expect a stranger to even half-care. “My dad’s here with Ferrari, and I’m here to babysit my dad.” She laughs. 

The woman nods, makes a quiet ah sound. Will asks for clarification. “You guys lose each other, or something?”

Chris nods. “Or something.”

Charles sees her before he hears her. She appears in his peripheral on the top floor of Ferrari Hospitality, moving swiftly through the groups of strangers with a confidence that makes you think she owns the place. He half-prepares to excuse himself from his current conversation–not that he’s understanding more than forty-percent of the words coming out of this guy’s mouth–to take a photo with the short brunette bee-lining it over to him. 

“Excu–”

“I think I saw Brad Pitt on my way here,” she says, and the man he’s been talking to for fifteen minutes laughs. Oh, he thinks, that’s mortifying. She’s not here to intrude on his conversation and ask for a picture. She’s here with this guy. 

“This is my Chris,” Bill says. 

“Hi,” Chris says. Chris. Chris. Chris is a woman. A woman extending her hand, thin and well manicured with a single ruby ring, for him to shake. “Chris.”

“Charles,” he says, hesitates. “You are not what I was expecting.” 

There wasn’t much he understood from Bill Elliott during their hot lap, not that Bill didn’t talk. Charles just didn’t have the focusing capabilities to drive the car in an entertaining way while also deciphering the thick southern drawl of the man sat in the passenger seat. It was thick, heavy, and sounded like maybe he’d smoked a pack a day for a few years. That, or he was straight-up making up words in a bit that only he was in on. One thing he did understand, though, was the kids’ names. I have three, he’d said, Chandler, Chase, and Chris. He’d assumed all boys. Chandler, Chase, and Christopher. Christian. Cristiano. The last thing he was expecting was a beautiful girl with a firm handshake. 

“You were expecting me?” She asks, and her voice is a million times easier to understand than her father’s. 

“No, no. He just,” He gestures absently to Bill. Chris doesn’t break eye contact. She has wonderful eyes. “I thought Chandler, Chase, and Chris are three brothers.”

“Oh,” She laughs like it’s not even close to the first time she’s had to follow behind her dad and correct the miscommunication, and a piece of her bangs falls loose from its tucked position behind her ear. She fixes it without thought. “Well, you’re one for three.” 

She asks Bill about the hot lap, asks if he had fun and he laughs. They’re very laugh-oriented people, he’s noticed. Laughy and almost intimidatingly good at holding eye contact. He’d always heard Americans had an issue with eye contact, and if that really is the case, these two practice their active-listening skills enough for the rest of the country. Their kindness is in their expressions, soft eyes and small smiles that keep you from feeling like an intrusion on the conversation. He notes all of his findings internally, categorizes them together as if he’s spent the last ten minutes looking at anyone but her. 

She’s horrendously his type. It’s painfully apparent with every passing moment. The hair and the face and the build and the smile. Just, God.

“Why didn’t you do one?” He asks, “A lap?”

“The need-for-speed bug skipped the women in my family, unfortunately.” She tucks her hair again. He wonders if she’s growing it out or if she always keeps it at such a length that it’s just too short to stay where she wants it to. 

“We could go slow,” he offers and she chuckles, closing her eyes long enough to roll them without him actually seeing them roll. 

“I don’t believe you.”

“It’ll be fun, I promise.” He’s never been good at flirting, always found it off-putting in the beginning, trying to walk the line between what one person finds fun and another person finds horribly uncomfortable. Once the dust settles, he can manage, but making those first few moves? He might as well be a deer in headlights. Semi-truck headlights. 

“I don’t know,” she says, drags out the vowel sounds and he’s oblivious to whether or not she can tell he’s only making this offer as a chance to spend more time with her. He’ll get an earful for it, no doubt, but if she agrees it’ll be worth it. Bill chimes in, eggs her on with a guilt trip. You should do it, don’t be a party-pooper. Charles wonders if Bill can tell he’s flirting with his daughter. Probably not, he’d bet. “Okay,” she says, and his stomach does a celebratory flip. Before he can say anything more, Mia is pulling him off somewhere. He hadn’t even seen her coming, but he fills her in on the walk.

“Domani c'è un'aggiunta al programma dei giri veloci.” There’s an addition to the hot laps schedule tomorrow, he says. Mia glares at him and he pretends not to notice, flashes her a toothy-grin as an unapologetic apology. 

When she’d agreed to do a hot lap with the gorgeous racing driver standing a foot away from her, she assumed it would be forgotten the moment he stepped away from the conversation. She never would have agreed to it if she actually thought it was going to happen. Chris was sorely mistaken though, when later that afternoon, a man dressed head-to-toe in Ferrari red finds her to gather her information. 1:10, he tells her through a thick Italian accent, be in hospitality at 1:10. 

It was wonderful, really. Perfect, fantastic, great, legendary. This is an amazing opportunity. She isn’t going to regret agreeing to this, no chance. Even for the queen of optimism, this one is hard to put a positive spin on. 

There is no underestimating just how much Chris hates going fast. She’s never liked it, spent the majority of her childhood getting carsick in a vehicle maxing out at forty miles an hour. Her sister and brother used to think she was faking it just so she could always ride shotgun. She’s not even allowed to drive the car if she’s with her dad or her brother because they can’t bear it. To her, a speed limit is just that, a limit. To everyone else, it’s a minimum. 

Her only hope is that she doesn’t vomit all over an expensive supercar at 1:10 tomorrow afternoon, or worse–the cute guy driving the car. 

In the meantime, she can distract herself with the Green Day performance and remind herself that only so much can happen in five minutes. Anyone can survive five minutes. 

– – –

They eat the continental breakfast at the hotel the next morning. Bill has pancakes and Chris has cereal because, as she’ll tell anyone, there’s just something about cereal from a plastic container. She’s also three coffees ahead of where she was this time the day before, all of her nerves personifying themselves as desperation for caffeine. She’s responding to a work email on her phone while Bill has a call with Chase. 

Somewhere on a race track in Florida, Chase is calling between practice and qualifying sessions. They talk every day during a race weekend–Bill and Chase–and it’s almost never about racing. Her dad might drop an occasional that’s not what I would’ve done or a well, that looked like fun, but that’s usually the end of race-talk. They used to fight like cats and dogs about driving when Chase was younger, so much so that Chris’ mom banned them from talking about racing inside the house for three straight years. The who of them are better now, now that Bill’s been able to let Chase find his own way and go through his own racing journey. 

“Your sister is doing a Hot Lap today,” Bill says, and Chris can hear Chase’s laughter from the muffled speaker. 

Bill and Chris are driven to the track on Saturday because traffic is so bad. It’s hot and windy and Chris has her window rolled down the entire drive, her fingers dancing through the dry air. She’s always loved the heat, the sun shining down on her skin, kissing her in a million different places all at the same time. She loves the heat, and the heat loves her. 

The morning flies by. They start the day with a tour of the Ferrari garage, where they’re introduced, or re-introduced, to their drivers. They end up with a couple other very important people hunched over Charles’ car while he explains how much pressure needs to be applied to the brake pedal for the car to actually brake. Bill eats the semantics up, cars and their mechanics run thick in his blood, braided deeply into his DNA. Chris, however, has always enjoyed the more delicate things in life; the pink hair bows and the dollar store makeup kits and spinning herself dizzy in a flowy summer dress. She never spent exorbitant amounts of time at Dad’s engine shop or Grandpa’s Ford Dealership, it just wasn’t in her lane of interests. She sips another coffee–her fifth of the day–and listens attentively to Charles talk, bites her smile at his wild gesticulations. He’d make a good kindergarten teacher, she thinks, with his huge personality. 

When the whole tour group is being shuffled out of the garage to be replaced by a new set of prying eyes, Charles makes a passing comment. See you later for the world’s slowest hot lap, he remarked, put his hand on her shoulder and gave it a soft squeeze as he moved past her. 

She doesn’t know why, but she’d convinced herself that it wouldn’t actually be him she would be doing the lap with. It was qualifying day, after all. Surely, he had about a million and one better things to be doing than driving a random girl around a track a few times. She figured it would be a driver, but not one of the drivers. 

After lunch, she makes her way back to Ferrari hospitality, to where she was told to be waiting at 1:10. She’s the only person who looks like they’re here on instruction. Nobody else is nervously picking at their cuticles or vibrating in place as a reaction to their seven coffees that morning.

She spent the night before grilling her dad about his experience, forcing him to give her a moment-by-moment breakdown of everything he remembered happening, from the safety briefing to the conversation afterwards. But, when it came time for Chris to actually do hers, there was no safety briefing warning her about the million different ways she could die. Instead, the same man who’d tracked her down the day before escorted her from the top floor of hospitality to the bottom, out the back into what she can best compare to an alleyway, and then to a red supercharged Ferrari. 

Charles is there, talking to what appears to be a personal photographer and another man dressed in Ferrari garb. She re-introduces herself for a third time in twenty four hours. “I know your name, Chris,” Charles says, smiles and shakes her hand anyway. She doesn’t like the way her brain reacts to him saying her name like it belongs on his lips. 

“Duh,” she laughs, “sorry.”

“Don’t be.”

“Right,” she nods. “Yeah, sorry.” Charles laughs out a sigh, cocks his head and smiles. Chris bites her tongue not to apologize again. It’s a reflex. She puffs out her laugh and shrugs. 

If she manages to make it out of these couple laps with her life and the contents of her stomach still intact, she’s sure to still look like a clown–a fact she realizes as she pulls the tight helmet over her head. She’s worn racing helmets a handful of times, but it’s not muscle memory to her in the way it is to him. It takes her a minute to tighten the chin strap just right and despite his genuine offer to help her, Chris turns him down and blindly works her fingers under her neck until it’s just right. 

“Why don’t you get a fun Hot Laps helmet?” She asks while she fights with the strap. 

Charles knocks on the side of his helmet with his knuckle. “Custom fit. Safety reasons.”

Chris knows, she was just messing with him. She nods like she never could’ve guessed that was the reason. “My safety doesn’t matter?” She comments, pulls the strap tight for the final time. 

“You think I’m going to crash?”

She shrugs. “Maybe.”

“I would never crash with Chris Elliott in the car.” There he goes again, saying her name all annoyingly French and nice and easy. 

“Whatever,” she says, turns away so he can’t see her squished cheeks flush pink against the polyester. He opens the passenger side door for her, knocks his knuckle on her helmet this time, and horribly mocks both her words and accent before shutting the door behind her. 

Chris has her seatbelt buckled before he can get around the front of the car and into his seat. Her leg bounces anxiously against the floor mat. Charles starts the car and moves to shift into drive, but stops short. “Are you scared?” he asks, and in a moment of vulnerable honesty, she nods. She’s more than scared. She’s terrified, and despite his brief attempt to reassure her that it’s going to be fun, her leg is still bouncing when they peel off from the group already awaiting his return. 

A hot lap, she’d come to learn in the last day or so, would be more accurately referred to as hot laps–plural, multiple, several. Three, to be exact. One out lap, one push lap, and one cool down lap. Three laps. Hot laps. They should really start referring to it as a plural. 

The best thing she can compare it to is a roller coaster. The turns share the feeling you get at the tipping point, right before your body thinks you’re free falling. Her stomach is left behind three turns back and it never really catches up to the car once they start. The straights are like that first hill, fast and crazy in a way that pulls from her lips screams she hears before she consciously chooses to release. It’s like a roller coaster, if the person sitting next to you is completely unaffected by the ride and spends the entire time trying to carry out a conversation with you between your screams and their giggles. It’s like a roller coaster, if the cart never leaves the ground. 

On the cool down lap, when they’re going at a speed that allows Chris to pick up her soul when they drive through turn four, he asks her if she’s single. It comes at her from left field. 

“Are you flirting with me?”

He laughs, takes a hand off the wheel and pinches the bridge of his nose. “Yes!”

“Oh,” she says softly. If he notices the surprise in her tone, he doesn’t mention it. “I am.” 

“Can I get your number?” She swears that his fingers are shakier than before as they hover over the paddle shift. They were sure-footed just minutes earlier, she’s sure of it. She’s sure of it, but there’s no way it’s a genuine observation. There’s no way she’s making him nervous. 

She laughs, because what on God’s green Earth is a European Formula One driver going to do with a small town American girl’s phone number? 

“I’m not abandoning my dad for a hookup,” she says, and he rolls his eyes, repeats the question. “Why do you want it?”

“Because, Chris Elliott,” she wants to scrape the way he says her name out of his voice box and pin it in a scrapbook. It’s like a tick, the way it burrows into her skin. Nobody should be allowed to make her name sound like that. “You are a very beautiful girl, and when a guy sees a beautiful girl, they act like an idiot and ask for her number.” 

“Oh, my God,” she giggles, shakes her head and looks out the window like it might ground her, or like it might reveal that she really is in some fever dream state and none of this is real. She’s not even in Texas, maybe. That’s how insane this whole conversation is to her. 

“Too cheesy?” He asks, grimaces. She shakes her head, holds her hand out for his phone. 

“Just cheesy enough.”

When they get back to where they started, someone asks Chris if she’d had a good time. She nods, flattens down the static-electricity charged flyaways on her head and tells them yes, even if she’ll be just a little bit nauseous for the rest of the day. It’s not a lie, either, she did have fun. She was scared out of her mind, but in a way that makes her happy she did it. 

They pose for a photo together in front of the car, the picture snapped by the only guy with a camera around his neck, the only one besides Chris not covered head to toe in Ferrari branding. When they pose, Charles’ arm wraps around her lower back and, almost like he remembers himself in the middle of the action, his hand doesn’t close around her side. Instead, it hovers just beyond her body, open and stiff and flat. How gentlemanly. “Good luck tomorrow,” she says.

He nods his thanks, “I hope I see you around this weekend,” he adds, and then they go their separate ways. Good thing, too, because she’s still blushing over it when she gets back to her dad in the Champion’s club. Bill is too distracted by the live feed on Chase’s qualifying laps on his tiny phone screen to notice Chris’ presence, much less the coloring of her cheeks. He qualifies third and they celebrate quietly with drinks from the bar and FP3 on the big screens. 

They stumble into more NASCAR old-timers while in the Champion’s Club and Chris spends the time fifth-wheeling their conversations about Chase and watching the second half of qualifying on one of the TVs. 

She doesn’t really understand the format of the weekend. In theory, she understands the basics, didn’t have to read Formula One for Dummies on the plane ride over, but the intricacies of it are beyond her. In NASCAR, drivers are split into two groups and then are only given, at max, two laps to set their qualifying times. It varies depending on the track that weekend, but it always hits some of the same points. From what she can gather from the low-volume televisions mounted on every surface around her, F1 is definitely different. 

They head back to the hotel directly after qualifying to ‘beat the traffic’ which is code for Chris is still nauseous and they’re both feeling a little too heat exhausted. They stop for dinner on the way back, at a barbeque place right by their hotel. Bill orders the chopped brisket with potato salad and Chris gets the pulled pork sandwich with a tomato zucchini salad. 

Chris has been really busy with work, with settling into the new routine with her new group of students, and Bill wants to hear all about it. She always struggles in September and October, feels inadequate every time the other teachers find their footing with their new class weeks before she does. It’s the first time alotta ‘em have been in a school, Bill reminds her and she shrugs it off, tries to find something more upbeat to talk about. 

Chris and Bill have really gotten close over the past couple years. Growing up, she and her sister Chandler were massive daddy’s girls, had him wrapped around their little fingers from the moment they came into the world. But, when Chase started to really take racing seriously, the girls lost a lot of their dad to their brother and spent the majority, if not all, of their time with their Mom. As a teenager, Chris did what all sixteen year old girls do and rebelled against any and every rule in the book. While Chandler was touring colleges and getting 1550s on her SAT and singing in the church choir, Chris had other plans. Whether it was stubbornly refusing to clean her half of the shared room with her big sister, ratting Chase out for coming home at 2am drunk, or sneaking out of the second-story window to go out with her all-too-old boyfriend, she tested all of the waters. It wasn’t until college, until she moved away to Athens and was out of the house for the first time in her life that she realized just how important family was to her. She’s been attempting to make up for lost time since. 

That night when she plugs her phone into the charger and shuts it off for the night, she realizes she’d been half expecting a late night text from Charles. It didn’t come, and disappointed isn’t the right word for the tiny little pit in her stomach because she wasn’t really expecting anything to come from typing her number into his contacts.  It’s not disappointment, it’s something closer to acceptance or rejection, maybe. It’s not like he would’ve been searching out anything but a hookup, anyways, and Chris made it perfectly clear that she wasn’t into that idea. 

She would never hear from him again, and that’s how it should be. The whole interaction turning into anything but a story she can tell in a couple months when she’s drunk would be entirely too complicated of an outcome. 

She doesn’t let herself think about it any longer, leaves her phone face down on the side table and tucks herself into bed. 

– – –

Traffic on race day is true-crime inducing. They’re driven, again, escorted and still spend an hour and a half in the backseat of an SUV. Bill and Chris watch from the VIP stands and Chris has never seen anything like this, especially not at COTA. Even Talladega and Daytona barely hold a candle to this spectacle. 

If she has one critique, it’s that F1 should really hire some B-List at best celebrity to scream drivers, start your engines! At the start of the race like they do in NASCAR. It would really add some flare, she thinks. 

She and Bill share Chris’ airpods, one in each of their ears listening to the NASCAR broadcast. Charles starts twelfth, for whatever reason. She can’t be bothered to look into it, knows it’ll probably be a penalty she doesn’t understand and she’ll be tumbling down a rabbit hole before she knows what’s happened to her. 

While it’s not Chase’s best race–he finishes fourteenth with a single sigh from Bill–Charles puts on a show, fights his tires all the way up into third. 

They watch the podium celebrations on the TV screens and nobody looks happy to be up there. They look miserable, almost, and she understands it to an extent. It’s hard to have energy after a race, she’s witnessed it first hand more times than she can count. It’s hard, especially at the end of the season. Burn-out is real, but still. They look bored. She didn’t know spraying champagne could look so tired. 

Bill grumpily flies them home to Georgia late Sunday night. He’d wanted to wait until Monday morning, after all the billionaires and their super-jets take off right after the race, but Chris refused to miss another day of work this early in the school year, not when she was already going to be missing time in December for her brother’s wedding. 

Bill’s been flying planes since before any of his kids were born. His most recent purchase is a Cessna Conquest II that he uses to fly the family around for short distances. In another gene that skipped the females in the family, Chandler, Chris, and their mom all prefer to be passengers. Chase, however, followed in Dad’s footsteps once more in becoming an avid aviation fan. 

By the time they take off, any thought Chris had of getting a text from Charles has faded far into obscurity. He’d probably gotten dozens of numbers from girls this weekend. He was probably at a club somewhere right now still pulling women. Women more his type, probably. He seems like he’d be more into the refined type, the girls without the ‘cheap’ accents who were all worldly and spoke seventeen languages fluently and had long legs that carried them down runways across Europe every other weekend. 

Little southern girls get texts from little southern boys, that’s how it goes. That's how it’s always gone, and Chris is beyond naive to think anything different for even a moment. 

She grades papers on the flight home. Purple pen, because she thinks that color is fun and red is too cruel to grade with. Puffy stickers for everyone, even the kids who aren’t anywhere near the right track because she doesn’t want anyone to feel less than just because they struggle a bit more. Chris has always been a firm believer that the student is never the problem. If someone isn’t learning what she’s teaching, she needs to adjust the way she teaches it to cater to their learning style. 

It’s her job to teach them, not their job to learn. 

Joris has been laughing at Charles from the hotel room armchair for fifteen minutes now, beyond entertained by his best friend’s restless pacing, providing absolutely zero aid to his current predicament. This act has been going on for some time now. Charles, pacing for five minutes before pulling out his phone and typing up an opening message to Chris. Each time, he starts to read it out to Joris and then stops himself short, deletes it, and paces for five more minutes. 

Hey, Chris. This is Ch–no, that’s stupid. 

Sorry it took me a minute to text–absolutely not. 

What’s up? It’s Charles, how–someone should just stop him from speaking to women all together. 

There’s half a dozen renditions before Joris breaks. “Mate? What is your problem?” He finally asks. “It’s just a girl.”

“I know,” Charles sighs, “I know.”

“Then why can’t you send her a text?”

“Because.” He doesn’t really know why he can’t land on a message, why everything he types sounds entirely too casual or formal or nothing at all like what he would say to another human being. This isn’t a problem that he’s used to having. It’s the in-person flirting that fucks him up, not the texts and DMs and comments. She was just… he doesn’t know what she was. She was just. End of sentence. 

It’s no help that he doesn’t know American texting culture, unfamiliar with how long he’s supposed to wait to send a message or what he’s supposed to say in the opening text. 

“Here,” Joris says, holds his hand out for the phone. “I’ve got the perfect text.”

“Don’t send it,” Charles warns, but passes the phone to his friend. 

“I… won’t,” Joris says slowly, struggling to multi-task. He doesn’t type for more than a few seconds and then hands the phone back to Charles, with the message already sent. Charles’ look of sheer panic is met with a smile and a chef’s kiss from Joris. 

She turns her phone off while Bill is shutting the plane engine down in the hangar. Because of his love of aviation, Bill had bought some land out in the woods a couple decades ago and turned it into the family’s private airstrip for their planes.  Elliott Field, they coined it, stored all their extra vehicles out on the property. She slips it into her back pocket as her and Bill disembark and lock up the place, and the entire time she can feel it vibrating, the notifications from the hour and a half flight catching up now that she’s on the ground again. 

It’s not until she’s in her car that she checks them, pulls her phone out to plug it into the aux and play some music for the drive back to her house. Right at the top of the dozens of notifications is a message from an unknown number with an unfamiliar area code. 

[one unread message] the notification reads. She unlocks her phone to check the message. 

She closes the messages app on her phone and opens up Spotify, shuffles her favorite playlist. She doesn’t reply to his text, doesn’t know if she wants to or even what she might say back. She’s sleepy, more than ready for bed after a long weekend in the sun, excited to be back with her students bright and early tomorrow morning. 

The text from the cute race car driver can wait for another day. An issue for tomorrow, maybe. 

masterlist next chapter>

[shewhoworshipscarlin]

Earlene Dennis Brown

Earlene Dennis Brown, a three-time Olympian, was the first African American woman to win a medal in the shot put. Throughout her life Brown excelled in a variety of sports, gaining attention, recognition, and honors. She is the only shot-putter to compete in three consecutive Olympics (1956, 1960, 1964). Brown won Olympic bronze for Women’s shot put in 1960; was Amateur Athletic Union Champion in shot put (1956-62, 1964); won Amateur Athletic Union Championship, discus (1958-59, 1961); won gold medal in shot put, silver medal in discus, USA-USSR dual meet (1958); was shot put and discus champion, Pan-American Games (1959); and placed 12th in shot put, Tokyo Olympics (1964).

Earlene Dennis, born July 11, 1935, in Latexo, Texas to Espenola Tillis Dennis, a domestic servant, and Willie Dennis, a semipro baseball player with the Negro League in Texas. When her parents separated in 1938, Dennis remained with her mother and they moved to Los Angeles in 1945. Dennis’s mother married Julius Walker in 1946. Dennis attended Jordan High School in South Central Los Angeles, where she excelled in track and field. Her athletic ability was noticed by many, including Adeline Valdez, Dennis’s high school gym teacher, Josephine Spearman, and Coach Clarence Mackey, who tried to get her to compete in the Helsinki Olympics (in 1952 in Helsinki, Finland). Valdez is credited with putting the first discus in Dennis’ hands while her history teacher taught her to shot put. Before competing in shot put and discus, Dennis anchored the relay team.

In 1956, Brown finished in the top ten in the shot put and the discus. In 1958 Brown received the #1 world ranking and became the first American to break the 50-foot barrier. Brown won gold medals in the shot put as well as discus events at the Pan American Games in 1959. At the Tokyo Olympics in 1964 Brown placed 12th in the shot put.

Brown retired from the shot put competition in 1965. The same year she took up another sport, roller derby. Brown’s career in skating began as a blocker for the New York Bombers.

In 1975, Brown retired from all athletic ventures and worked as a beautician to provide for herself and family. On May 1, 1983, Earlene Dennis Brown passed away in Compton, California at the age of 47. On December 1, 2005, Earlene Brown was posthumously inducted in the National Track and Field Hall of Fame by the USA Track and Field (USATF) Association during the Jesse Owens Awards and the Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony in Jacksonville, Florida.

[smarty-jones]

Tappan Street wins the 2025 Florida Derby

(x)

[wtttquestionsdaily]

the winner is Table News: Convicts, Homelessness, and the Kentucky Derby's thumbnail!

and sorry to say Weird Laws: Rhode Island's thumbnail is out

NEXT

you have 24 hours to decide

[atomicwinnerdreamland]

One of my favorites of Ben's videos is "Table News: Convicts, Homelessness, and the Kentucky Derby" for many reasons, this being one of them:

Gov: He murdered his wife?!?

Indiana: Allegedly.

Gov: Oh yeah, I've heard that one before.

Indiana: Just because he admitted to hitting her head with a flower pot and then dumping her body in a river doesn't mean he killed her.

Florida: Yeah, that math checks out.

Gov: Okay, maybe we don't talk about convicted felons today, huh.

Alabama: Oh.. *crosses out something on paper*

Louisiana: Mais, come on now, just one more can't hurt.

Gov: What, Alabama?

Alabama: It ain't nothing we can't just move right on past.

Florida: Booo, spill the tea.

Gov: Let's hear it.

Alabama: A corrections officer helped an inmate escape and now they're both on the run.

Louisiana: Hehe, today just keeps getting better :D

Holy shit, these are some wild ass criminal stories. Sweet, cinnamon roll Indiana talking about a murder in his state with a smile on his face is both unsettling (like, is he used to this?!?) and cute (aww, Indy <3). This fic by @xechoecho88x is such a wonderful Indiana story if ya wanna read one :D

Along with that, Alabama's criminal story is crazy: the corrections officer apparently fell in love with the inmate, helped him escape, and then were found in Indiana (corrections officer died and the inmate was captured). Honestly this case got me intrigued, so I imagine Alabama and Indiana talking about it after the meeting like, "I can't believe your corrections officer & inmate ended up in my state, 'bama." "I can't believe it neither honestly, but your dude murdered his wife with a flower pot?" "Yeah no yeah, I can't believe he used a flower pot too." "Wha- the murder didn't surprise you?"

Loui and Florida being super into the criminal stories and Gov looking like he needs an aspirin was so lovely to see :) Of course the Chaos Duo would be intrigued by stories related to crime, but I'm kinda shocked Gov wasn't as into the stories as they are considering his shadiness lol (or... was he?)

[fishfingersalad]

Rvb skating hcs, bc I miss skating but I can’t figure out how to put the brake back on my blades, and where I live is rlly hilly so I need it or else I'm trapped in the cul-de-sac.

Putting a break cause its a real long list lol

Skateboards:

Alpha Church (Can’t actually skateboard, swears he can but he's sooo wobbly) Tex (Can actually skateboard, makes fun of church) Tucker (Between Church and Tex’s levels, hes decent at it) Wash (Don’t think I need to explain this one) Niner (I’ve seen a lot of wheelchair niner hcs, shed totally do wheelchair skateboarding) Palomo (Falls over a lot, but hey he just keeps on going.) Bitters (Absolutely holds it over Palomos head that he’s better at skateboarding) Theta (canon)

Rollerskates:

Kai (Dunno if this one needs an explanation, she might like derby ngl) Donut (He seems like he’d use them as transportation, just skatin around) South (She’d do roller derby and get so competitive about it) CT (Seen some videos of people doing sweet flips and tricks w skates) Ohio (She gives me the vibe of someone who’s got cool iridescent pink roller skates) Andersmith (Picked up skating cause the younger lieutenants were into it) Matthews (He’s a bit unbalanced, but he’s determined)

Rollerblades:

Carolina (Speed, blades are faster than skates) Simmons (He is shaky as hell, but he is trying. Won’t skate anywhere that’s not flat.) Kimball (Lina taught her, they race) Dr Grey (Dunno, just vibes) Jensen (Much like Simmons but with more uneven terrain) Epsilon Church (Picked blades so he could skate w Lina, and to be different from Wash n Alpha) Omega/O’malley (I'm just picturing him chasing people around at high speeds, cackling) Eta (Wanted to try something new, and to spend time w Theta)

Iceskates:

Florida (Specifically figure skating) Felix (Honestly idk, he’s cold and sharp like an ice skate) Delta (He’d ramble about why it’s an intellectual sport, but actually just thinks its fun) Sigma (He’d be rlly pretentious about it)

Scooter:

York (Guy has no balance but still wants to be included) Iota (Cheers on Eta and Theta, does sick scooter tricks)

Other:

Grif (I think he’d have a longboard that he rides around) Sarge (Quad bike) Doc (Also a longboarder) Idaho (I think he’d prefer dirt bike racing) Iowa (Quad bike, it’s like a mongoose) Caboose (Mountain bike, no real explanation, just vibes)

Doesn’t skate (or bike or anything):

Lopez (He prefers cars, might've made an electric skateboard at some point but doesn't rlly use it) Wyoming (Can’t see him skating at all ngl) North (Cheers everyone else on and records videos) Maine (First aid) Locus (Tried to skate once and fell over. Now he just broods from the benches.) Doyle (Too nervous, prefers to just watch) Gamma (I don’t think he’d go outside much ngl)

[railraptor]

The Fantasy was a hella race. Love a nice dogfight down the stretch. Quietside is definitely one of my top picks for the Oaks. Maybe she'll emulate Thorpedo Anna lol

Now I just want Coal Battle to take the next step to Louisville (and beat the BB horse, please).

Florida Derby might've knocked Sovereignty down a bit though he was finishing strong enough for me. Certainly it'll make his odds a bit longer in a month and a bit. Disappointed by Disruptor a bit there but eh.

[kewilson9]

Checked out the Christmas pop up for Lark & Larry’s last night in Florida 🎄 Sugar Cookie for Lark, Gin-chmas for me, Brown Derby for Chris and Pinot (not pictured) for Larry.

[brookstonalmanac]

Holidays 8.30

Holidays

Archivist Day (Kyrgyzstan)

AVID Day

Barberry Day (French Republic)

Commemoration Day for the Fatalities in Pre-Deportation Detention (Germany)

Frankenstein Day

Fred Hampton Day (Illinois)

Freeman-Moss Day

Huey P. Long Day (Louisiana)

International Day of the Disappeared

International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearances (UN)

International Missy Barratt Day (Aenopia)

International Puma Day

International Whale Shark Day

Jimmy Buffet Day

Manu Ginobili Day (Texas)

Marcelo H. Del Pilar Day (Bulacan, Philippines)

Motel Day (Colombia)

National Ass Clapping Day

National Beach Day

National Bite People Who Annoy You Day

National Black Beauty Founders Day

National Grief Awareness Day

National Harper Day

National Holistic Pet Day

National Homecare Day of Action

National Press Freedom Day (Philippines)

National Screen Time Awareness Day

National Small Industry Day (India)

Pinaglabanan Day (Philippines)

Retrospection Day

Rowboat Day

Saint Rose of Lima’s Day (Peru)

Slinky Day

Talk Intelligently Day

Victory Day (Turkey)

Food & Drink Celebrations

International Cabernet Sauvignon Day

National Mai Tai Day (a.k.a. Real Mai Tai)

National Toasted Marshmallow Day

New England Apple Day

Independence & Related Days

Ashoka (Declared; 2010) [unrecognized]

Constitution Day (Kazakhstan)

Constitution Day (Turks and Caicos Islands)

Kohlandia (Declared; 2019) [unrecognized]

Leylandiistan & Gurvata (Declared; 2014) [unrecognized]

Liberation Day (Hong Kong; from Japanese Occupation; 1945)

National Liberation Day (Gabon; 2023)

Tatarstan (from Russia, 1990) [unrecognized]

5th & Last Friday in August

Burning of Zozobra (Old Man Gloom effigy) [Friday before 9.1]

College Colors Day [Friday nearest 9.1]

Comfort Food Friday [Every Friday]

Daffodil Day (New Zealand) [Last Friday]

Five For Friday [Every Friday]

Flashback Friday [Every Friday]

Forgive Your Foe Friday [Friday of Be Kind to Humankind Week]

Friday Finds [Every Friday]

Fry Day (Pastafarian; Fritism) [Every Friday]

Peruvian Coffee Day (Peru) [Last Friday]

Positive Twitter Day [Last Friday]

TGIF (Thank God It's Friday) [Every Friday]

Tracky Dack Day (Australia) [Last Friday]

Wear It Purple Day (Australia) [Last Friday]

Sheep Market Fair begins (Denmark) [Last Friday through Sunday]

Weekly Holidays beginning August 31 (4th Full Week of August)

Labor Day Weekend (U.S. & Canada) [Begins Friday before 1st Monday in September]

Benton Neighbor Day (Benton, Missouri)

Britt Draft Horse Show (Britt, Iowa)

Bumbershoot (Seattle, Washington)

Central City Rock 'n' Roll Cruise-in & Concert (Central City, Kentucky)

Cleveland National Air Show (Cleveland, Ohio)

Clothesline Fair (Prairie Grove, Arkansas)

Colombia River Cross Channel Swim (Hood River, Oregon)

Colorado Balloon Classic (Colorado Springs, Colorado)

Commonwheel Labor Day Weekend Arts and Crafts Festival (Manitou Springs, Colorado)

Daniel Boone Pioneer Days (Winchester, Kentucky)

Fort Bridger Rendezvous (Fort Bridger, Wyoming)

Great Bathtub Race (Nome, Alaska)

Great Grove Bed Race (Coconut Grove, Florida)

Harvest Wine Celebration (Livermore, California)

Hog Capital of the World Festival (Kewanee, Illinois)

Hopkinton State Fair (Contoocook, New Hampshire)

Iroquois Arts Festival (Howes Cave, New York)

Johnson City Field Days (Johnson City, New York)

Jubilee Days Festival (Zion, Illinois)

Lifelight Outdoor Music Festival (Worthing, South Dakota)

Mackinac Bridge Walk (St. Ignace, Michigan)

National Championship Chuckwagon Races (Clinton, Arkansas)

National Hard Crab Derby and Fair (Crisfield, Maryland)

National Sweetcorn Festival (Hoopeston, Illinois)

Oatmeal Festival (Bertram/Oatmeal, Texas)

Odyssey Greek Festival (Orange, Connecticut)

On the Waterfront (Rockford, Illinois)

Old Threshers Reunion (Mount Pleasant, Iowa)

Oregon Trail Rodeo (Hastings, Nebraska)

Payson Golden Onion Days (Payson, Utah)

Pennsylvania Arts & Crafts Colonial Festival (Greensburg, Pennsylvania)

Popeye Picnic (Chester, Illinois)

Santa-Cali-Gon Days Festival (Independence, Missouri)

Scandinavian Fest (Budd Lake, New Jersey)

Sta-Bil Nationals Championship Lawn Mower Race (Delaware, Ohio)

Snake River Duck Race (Nome, Alaska)

Taste of Colorado (Denver, Colorado)

Taste of Madison (Madison, Wisconsin)

Totah Festival (Farmington, New Mexico)

Waikiki Roughwater Swim (Honolulu, Hawaii)

Westfest Czech Heritage Festival (West, Texas)

West Virginia Italian Heritage Festival (Clarksburg, West Virginia)

Wisconsin State Cow-Chip Throw (Prairie du Sac, Wisconsin)

Woodstock Fair (Woodstock, Connecticut)

World Championship Barbecue Goat Cook-Off (Brady, Texas)

Festivals Beginning August 30, 2024

Battle of Flowers (Laredo, Spain) [thru 8.30]

Brisbane Festival (Brisbane, Australia) [thru 9.21]

California Garlic Festival (Los Banos, California) [thru 9.1]

Calumet County Fair (Chilton, Wisconsin) [thru 9.2]

Casey Popcorn Festival (Casey, Illinois) [thru 9.2]

Coconino County Fair (Fort Tuthill County Park, Arizona) [thru 9.2]

Dice Con (Lviv, Ukraine) [thru 9.1]

Eastern Idaho State Fair (Blackfoot, Idaho) [thru 9.7]

European Medieval Festival (Horsens, Denmark) [thru 8.31]

Fall Fest 2024 (Schweitzer Mountain Resort, Idaho) [thru 9.2]

Galveston Island Wine Festival (Galveston, Texas) [thru 9.1]

Giant Cabbage Weigh-Off (Palmer, Alaska)

Great Pershing Balloon Derby (Brookfield, Missouri) [thru 9.2]

Harmony Fair (Harmony, Maine) [thru 9.2]

Marshall County Blueberry Festival (Plymouth, Indiana) [thru 9.2]

Michigan Bean Festival (Fairgrove, Michigan) [thru 8.31]

Midway Swiss Days (Midway, Utah)

National Hard Crab Derby (Crisfield, Maryland) [thru 9.1]

Nauvoo Grape Festival (Nauvoo, Illinois) [thru 9.1]

North Carolina Apple Festival (Hendersonville, North Carolina) [thru 9.2]

Obetz Zucchinifest (Obetz, Ohio) [thru 9.2]

Oktoberfest (Beaver Creek, Colorado) [thru 9.1]

PAX West, a.k.a. PAX Prime (Seattle, Washington) [thru 9.2]

Payson City Golden Onion Days (Payson, Utah) [thru 9.2]

Red Rooster Days (Dassel, Minnesota) [thru 9.2]

St. William Seafood Festival (Guntersville, Alabama) [thru 8.31]

Washington State Fair (Puyallup, Washington) [thru 9.22]

Wilhelm Tell Festival (New Glarus, Wisconsin) [thru 9.1]

Wisconsin State Cow Chip Throw & Festival (Prairie du Sac, Wisconsin) [thru 8.31]

Woodstock Fair (Woodstock, Connecticut) [thru 9.2]

Feast Days

Agilus (a.k.a. Aile; Christian; Saint)

Alexander of Constantinople (Eastern Orthodox)

Alfredo Ildefonso Schuster (Christian; Blessed)

Anne Line, Margaret Ward & Margaret Clitherow (Christian; Saints)

Black (Positivist; Saint)

Camilla Läckberg (Writerism)

Candle in a Wine Bottle Day (Pastafarian)

Charisteria (Charis, Goddess of Mercy; Old Roman Thanksgiving)

Chatter Champion Announcement Day (Shamanism)

Day of Satisfying the Hearts of the Ennead (Nine Major Gods; Ancient Egypt)

Eustáquio van Lieshout (Christian; Blessed)

Evelyn De Morgan (Artology)

Charles Chapman Grafton (Episcopal Church)

Fantinus (Christian; Saint)

Felix and Adauctus (Christian; Martyrs)

Festival of Charisteria (Day to Give Thanks; Ancient Rome)

Fiacre (Christian; Saint)

Guy de Lussigny (Artology)

Habetrot’s Eve Day (Northern Britain; Starza Pagan Book of Days)

Isaac Levitan (Artology)

Jacques Louis David (Artology)

J. Alden Weir (Artology)

Jeanne Jugan (Christian; Saint)

Leonor Fini (Artology)

Mary Shelley (Writerism)

Narcisa de Jesús (Christian; Saint)

Pammachius (Christian; Saint)

The Pullover Sweater (Muppetism)

Robert Crumb (Artology)

Rose of Lima (Christian; Saint)

Rumon (a.k.a. Ruan; Christian; Saint)

Sacrifice to Tari Pennu Day (Indian Earth-Goddess; Everyday Wicca)

Santa Rosa de Lima Day (Peru)

Stephen Nehmé (Maronite Church, Catholic Church; Blessed)

Theo van Doesburg (Artology)

Third Onam (Rice Harvest Festival, Day 3; Kerala, India)

Thor Day (Church of the SubGenius; Saint)

The Three Arts Day (Celtic Book of Days)

Virginia Lee Burton (Artology)

Lucky & Unlucky Days

Dismal Day (Unlucky or Evil Day; Medieval Europe; 16 of 24)

Egyptian Day (Unlucky Day; Middle Ages Europe) [16 of 24]

Sakimake (先負 Japan) [Bad luck in the morning, good luck in the afternoon.]

Unlucky Day (Grafton’s Manual of 1565) [39 of 60]

Premieres

Alice Chops the Suey (Ub Iwerks Disney Cartoon; 1925)

Anna Karenina (Film; 1935)

Bad Girl, by The Miracles (Song; 1959)

Beer (Film; 1985)

The Big Snooze (Chilly Willy Cartoon; 1957)

A Bird in a Guilty Cage (WB LT Cartoon; 1952)

Carnival Row (TV Series; 2019)

Dance, Girl, Dance (Film; 1940)

The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance (TV Series; 2019)

Emma (Film; 1996)

Flesh + Blood (Film; 1985)

The Funny World of Fred and Barney (Live Action/Animated TV Variety Show; 1978)

The Good Girl (Film; 2002)

Heart-Shaped Box, by Nirvana (Song; 1993)

Hey Jude, by The Beatles (Song; 1968) [1st Apple Records release]

Highway 61 Revisited, by Bob Dylan (Album; 1965)

Kravn the Hunter (Film; 2023)

The Late Show with David Letterman (Talk Show; 1993)

Little Cesario (MGM Cartoon; 1941)

Medúlla, by Björk (Album; 2004)

A Mouse in the House (Tom & Jerry Cartoon; 1947)

Music of the Sun, by Rihanna (Album; 2005)

Never Kick a Woman (Fleischer Popeye Cartoon; 1936)

Otello (Opera Film by Franco Zeffirelli; 1986)

Putting on the Act (Fleischer Popeye Cartoon; 1940)

Santana, by Carlos Santana (Album; 1969)

The School for Scandal, by Samuel Barber (Overture; 1933)

Short in the Saddle (Woody Woodpecker Cartoon; 1963)

Side to Side, by Ariana Grande (Song; 2016)

Slow Days, Fast Company, by Eve Babitz (Short Stories; 1977)

State Fair (Film; 1945)

Surf’s Up, by The Beach Boys (Song; 1971)

Terror on the Midway (Fleischer Cartoon; 1942) [#9]

The Three Bears (Ub Iwerks ComiColor Cartoon; 1935)

Top Hat (Film; 1935)

What Happened to Monday (Film; 2017)

Today’s Name Days

Felix, Herbert, Rebekka (Austria)

Aleksandar, Aleksandra (Bulgaria)

Didak, Margarita, Petar (Croatia)

Vladěna (Czech Republic)

Albert, Benjamin (Denmark)

Emil, Meljo, Mello, Miljo (Estonia)

Eemeli, Eemi, Eemil (Finland)

Fiacre (France)

Alma, Felix, Heribert, Rebekka (Germany)

Alexandra, Alexandros, Evlalios, Filakas (Greece)

Rózsa (Hungary)

Donato, Fantino (Italy)

Alija, Alvis, Jolanta (Latvia)

Adauktas, Augūna, Gaudencija, Kintenis (Lithuania)

Ben, Benjamin (Norway)

Adaukt, Częstowoj, Gaudencja, Miron, Rebeka, Róża, Szczęsna, Szczęsny, Tekla (Poland)

Ružena (Slovakia)

Íngrid, Pedro (Spain)

Albert, Albertina (Sweden)

Raisa, Rhoda, Rosa, Rosabelle, Rosalie, Rosalind, Rosalinda, Roseanne, Rose, Rosemary, Rosetta, Rosie (USA)

Today is Also…

Day of Year: Day 243 of 2024; 123 days remaining in the year

ISO: Day 5 of Week 35 of 2024

Celtic Tree Calendar: Coll (Hazel) [Day 28 of 28]

Chinese: Month 7 (Ren-Shen), Day 27 (Bing-Yin)

Chinese Year of the: Dragon 4722 (until January 29, 2025) [Wu-Chen]

Hebrew: 26 Av 5784

Islamic: 24 Safar 1446

J Cal: 3 Gold; Threesday [3 of 30]

Julian: 17 August 2024

Moon: 11%: Waning Crescent

Positivist: 19 Gutenberg (9th Month) [Fulton]

Runic Half Month: Rad (Motion) [Day 8 of 15]

Season: Summer (Day 72 of 94)

Week: 4th Full Week of August

Zodiac: Virgo (Day 9 of 32)

[radicalraff]

Rafael 'Raf' Garza

Occupation: Bartender, Photographer, Busker, Odd-Jobber Age: 28 Sexuality: Heterosexual Species: Homo sapiens Hometown: Miami, Florida Relationship Status: It is so complicated, man. Personality Traits: ++ Caring, Protective, Dutiful, Warm - - Overeager, Brash, Reckless, Stubborn

Raised in Miami at and around the turn of the millenium, Rafael Garza had a strong upbringing revolving around God and Family, even if he was never particularly devout himself - mass was always so damn gloomy, so damn concentrated on guilt and damnation, and who really had time for all that when you were coming up on the sunny south-eastern tip of the country. Still, any real differences of opinion between Raf and his family were superficial at best; he had a good childhood, with parents who did their best to provide, grandparents who did their best to impart knowledge and values, and a genuine and friendly nature that earned him friendship easy. A shifting economy and shifting career path saw him and his folks pull up roots as he made the jump from elementary to high school, taking him away from sunny Florida and dropping him dead center in the rainy, sun-starved climes of Seattle.

It was a culture shock, yeah, and the first time Raf had ever really felt lonely, east and west coast sensibilities crashing, a sudden slump in confidence turning him a bit more in on himself for a few years - he found art - lots of it. He found work, too - his parents thinking it was important for him to work early and build his work ethic up. It was in his freshman year he met Theodora, learned quickly that she was picky about nicknames, and only just after that that he was head over heels. For her energy. For her exuberance. Gosh, just for her. And then it’s been ten years and he’s had as many life’s callings as he’s had fingers. He's happy with a humble life. He's happy with her. She's seven years in a derby league and he never misses a single game. They decide to start a family. A little pack of their own, Theo says. And it’s great - it’s all great until suddenly it isn’t. Some fucking animal gets her, and it’s all downhill from there. The baby’s fine, til it isn’t. Til one month later he’s pushing a fucking couch against the door of their apartment bedroom and screaming at the thing on the other side of the door. The next time he sees Theo and he’s begging her to let him help - how? He doesn’t know, but he can’t not. She’s everything to him. She has his son in her belly - how can he do nothing?

But she tells him there’s nothing he can do but get away. But, he’s stupid and he’s in love and so he… well. He did construction and drywall for a while - the landlord had trouble buying that some wild animal did what was done to their apartment, and the security deposit - psh, that was gone - but he offered to fix it all, and he fixed it all. But after a couple months of trying to pretend this wasn’t happening - Theo… left. Said somebody told her a place to go, that she was going to go, and that he couldn’t follow.

And she left. She left him in Seattle for someplace in Oregon. She makes him promise not to follow, and promises that she’ll come back when it’s safe. But it’s not ever safe - not for like, a year. And he can’t talk about this with anyone and he can’t really talk her out of staying there and there’s only so long he can bear to watch his son and the woman he loves through the screen of a telephone or a shitty laptop while he lies to his family about Theo dealing with family problems. So he quits his job, he dips into savings and breaks his lease, and he tells his folks he’s got a job opportunity in Portland - more lies, yeah, but maybe he can do… something - anything.

[horsesarecreatures]

Monarch AH (Wiking x Sasanka) - 1987 Polish Arabian Stallion

https://www.allbreedpedigree.com/monarch+ah

Bred by Oxy Arabians, US Owned and raced by Magness Arabians 3/23 (19-3-0)14-3 Earnings: $213,646

19 wins & 4 places (incl: 14 Gr. wins & 3 Gr.places) winning incl: 1st A.R.A.M.Arabian Cup, 1st California Arabian Cup Sprint (G2), 1st AJC Armand Hummer Classic Handicap (G1), 1st AJC Cre Run Handicap (G3), 1st AJC Derby (G1), 2nd Armand Hammer Classic Handicap (G1), 2nd Florida Arabian Cup Stakes (G2) & sire of many winners.

1990 Darley Colt of the Year, 1991 Darley Colt of the Year, 1991 Darley Horse of the year, sire of 45 stakes winners, 169 race winners with get earnings exceeding $5,200,000.

Sold to UAE, to Sultan Bin ZayadAl Nahyan. Turned 30 years old in 2017. x